Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday June 23, 2009 @12:57AM
from the stupid-goes-right-to-the-bone dept.

Barence writes "Satnav firm Mio is launching a device with an integrated TV tuner. The Mio Spirit range includes a digital television tuner that is intended to be used 'during breaks in the journey or at their final destination.' However, safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel. When the system is first turned on a warning message is displayed, telling the user not to watch television while driving. If this is ignored, a secondary warning message kicks in if the GPS chip detects the vehicle is moving at more than 5mph. But that's it!"

Indeed. My in-dash navigation system often pops up warnings telling me that the map information hasn't been verified for the area that I'm in... covering up the map in doing so.. requiring me to press OK on the touch screen or wait 30 seconds.. which is about 10x longer than it needs to be there.

Yeah, my GPS has that option... the problem is that it accomplishes it by radio transmission. Which works great if I'm listening to music playing from the GPS, but it's useless if I'm listening to a CD or any other source.

For built-in units it's a great idea - you could wire it to make it's announcements over whatever happens to be playing. But for stand-alone units like the Mio or my Garmin it's not really feasible.

How about some interface with the car media player. You could then set the sat-nav to mute the music when it wants to say something.

My 2003 Mini Cooper S factory nav system does that. I didn't realize that all in-dash systems didn't. The voice of my nav system (Fiona) mutes whatever I'm listening to when she wants to tell me something.

I've had a lot of people wonder if she's a scofflaw; it sounds like she says, "If possible make ILLEGAL U-turn" instead of "If possible, make A LEGAL U-turn".

Even the current GPS units/DVD players can easily be defeated. In most cases, all you need to do is ground one of the pins in the connector, and it always thinks you are parked. My brother has been playing Family Guy DVDs in his in-dash unit for years. The SAME Family Guy DVD.

Exactly what I was thinking - there's a use case where you know your route but only want to carry one device and so entertain the other passengers by using it as the TV rather than using the SatNav (which you may need later) as a navigation device.

Yeah, people watching TV while driving is a problem, but there are far more prevalent problems that'll cause just as many accidents: people doing 100Mph+ on Motorways with warnings of queuing ahead, people not indicating, people on mobile phones, etc.

I had to drive past someone on a bike while texting on the weekend. Not an easy task. The guy was all over the road asking to be hit by someone not watching. It should be against the law to drive, bike, or whatever while trying to do something like distracting. If they do cause an accident it should be man slaughter because there is definitely negligence. Most of us are smart enough not to drive drunk its almost exactly the same thing.

Sadly, they are not on the road all on their own. And as much as I won't miss them if they drive into a ravine while watching TV, I'm a bit less happy if they're driving in the oncoming lane on the same road I'm driving (or more likely, in my lane while they are fiddling with the controls).

(Kind of like I'm fine with them being superuser on their own system, but what do you do when they need to have modify rights to a network drive which also contains my work)

Sadly, they are not on the road all on their own. And as much as I won't miss them if they drive into a ravine while watching TV, I'm a bit less happy if they're driving in the oncoming lane on the same road I'm driving (or more likely, in my lane while they are fiddling with the controls).

(Kind of like I'm fine with them being superuser on their own system, but what do you do when they need to have modify rights to a network drive which also contains my work)

So it's more like a shared DOS system, where everyone is a superuser, and they can all FORMAT C?

I would suggest that no safety concern justifies the implementation of *ineffectual* safety requirements. The ubiquity of portable television devices and personal media players (heck, my *phone* is a personal media player) insure that anybody who wants to watch TV while driving will have the ability to do so. Arbitrarily closing out one of the many LCD screens available to them is not going to prevent someone from watching a video screen [google.com] if they so choose.

..there is such a thing as personal responsibility and we don't need a nanny to babysit us all the time.

Life is like Unix and you are the superuser. With that comes the power to 'rm -rf' the system.. intentionally or not.

--iamnotayam

Nobody really cares if the driver kills himself while being terminally stupid. The problem is that they tend to take other people with them, people who did not have any part in their idiot choices. Your right to watch TV while driving does not override other people's right to live.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to own a computer. And I'd be extremely glad if a law was passed prohibiting any idiot using a cellphone or TV while driving from ever touching a driving wheel in their lifetime.

Your personal responsibility should be limited to your net worth. Otherwise, it's not your personal responsibility, but someone elses (whoever has to eat the difference between what you and your insurance are able to pay and the actual damage you caused).

Well, yeah, clearly the solution is to empower the government to do whatever it take in order to "protect" us. I hear that George Orwell wrote an instructional manual on that subject - perhaps you could forward a copy to your local politician, just to get the ball rolling

If by their actions they manage to injure/kill someone then they should bear the full force of the law..

I suspect that most of the ones who go on about "personal responsibility" and "force of law" are the same ones that would, if they were up before a court, whinge and whine and cry that it wasn't intentional and so they didn't do anything wrong. That and/or try to blame the carmaker for putting the device there in the first place.

Even "full force of law" means the culprit gets to sit in old sparky, that w

Even "full force of law" means the culprit gets to sit in old sparky, that won't bring a dead person back, enable a cripple to walk again etc.

No no no, in case of liability, it just means that they'll be financially liquidated in order to compensate their victims. Of course, a little creativity in this process could also provide a viable deterrent.

If some moron watching TV whilst she should have been watching the road mows down my family and crushes my children under her wheels I can tell you I wouldn't give a toss that she'd be paying the price for her lack of personal responsibility.

There is no justification at all for anyone to ever be driving a car and watching TV at the same time. Absolutely never and that moronic contrived example of emergency broadcasts given by someone above is pure nonsense. That being the case the government should make dam

That being the case the government should make damn sure that any such device deactivates the moment your car starts moving and punish anyone tampering with it.

Yes, this would be the magic government that has the ability to remotely disable ubiquitous [apple.com] portable [creative.com] video [playstation.com] screens [archos.com], using their Amulet of Regulation.

This is a problem that government cannot solve -- appealing to them is not going to make it happen.

Get shitty drivers and give them mobile phones to talk on so they become even shittier drivers. Now get those bastards to watch TV while talking and texting on their mobile phones and we'll have the shittiest drivers on the road. Hopefully, these bastards will kill themselves without killing others, making the road safer for everyone else.

Because if only we could prevent this one particular stupid thing people can do while driving we will eliminate all driving-related injuries and deaths.

Seriously, there is an endless supply of stupid, distracting things people can do while driving, with out without GPS, a cell phone, TV, children, or any of the other things they might have in their car. If someone is stupid enough to be distracted by TV while they're driving they'll likely be able to find something similarly stupid to do even if you ban every bit of technology you can name from the dashboard. Like DRM, the only thing you'll accomplish by adding silly technologically restrictions like this is annoyance for people who have legitimate uses.

Absolutely. I used to have a 45-minute commute to work when I lived in New Jersey and I honestly can't remember the number of times that I was almost run into by someone in a 3-ton SUV that was talking or texting instead of driving.

Japanese taxi drivers frequently have the TV playing on their nav units while driving, but they are among the safest drivers I've ever ridden with. I think two way communication is far more taxing to a driver's attention than a receive-only medium.

Chances are that eventually some of them will fight, but the likelihood of death (from fights) is minimal.Same 10 people, plus a sword, the chances of fights, injury and death, are increased.Same 10 people, a sword and a gun, the chances of fights, injuries and death are increased.

However, you could also argue that with a sword and a gun, the remaining people would be better able to prepare and eat the dead, thus increasing their chances of survival. However, tha

Uh, yes, yes they do? A scene right out of my own childhood with a little TV on a kids desk. Its actually a nearly ideal angular dimension... My livingroom couch is about nine feet way from about a 30 inch screen, same ratio. Then there's our portable DVD player, about 5 inch screen at 1.5 feet, same ratio. Your point?

When the system is first turned on a warning message is displayed, telling the user not to watch television while driving. If this is ignored, a secondary warning message kicks in if the GPS chip detects the vehicle is moving at more than 5mph. But that's it!"

I thought the whole point of "in car entertainment systems" was for the passengers, hence why you have displays in the back of the front seats and so on. For the kids to watch DVDs during long drives or whatever. To me that sounds much more useful than a system that only plays when stationary, because it's only occasionally that one sits in a stationary car for the duration of a TV episode.

I was just thinking that. What about my passengers? Why can't they watch TV while I drive? It's like saying having a bar in your car is illegal because you might drink. I don't have to. But I might want to offer the boozeheads I transport something to shut up and be drunk.

I dunno what's more a distraction, TV in the car or bored kids. From my experience, I'd say the latter.

Ok, then it's just as braindead. Just because another law forbids something similar doesn't mean that it should be done similar, too. "X is illegal so Y should be illegal too" is one way to view it. The other way is "Y is legal, so why isn't X?"

It becomes more and more common these days that the latter question is actually the more sensible one.

Is possible in my brothers brand new 2009 ( some asian car model). [Maybe If I remember I will find out and post it later.] It doesn't matter, I don't know the brand of the navigation system as well. What is important is that he can watch DVD's while driving. The only safety feature is that the parking brake has to be engagded, but only one click and he can watch DVD's while driving. That is nothing. He could drving across europe without problems with the hand brake engaged to the first ratchet.

Is possible in my brothers brand new 2009 ( some asian car model). [Maybe If I remember I will find out and post it later.] It doesn't matter, I don't know the brand of the navigation system as well. What is important is that he can watch DVD's while driving. The only safety feature is that the parking brake has to be engagded, but only one click and he can watch DVD's while driving. That is nothing. He could drving across europe without problems with the hand brake engaged to the first ratchet.

Superb trying to drive for hours with the handbrake on means you will have a break failure in an instant, best way to kill yourself...Your brother should be candidate for the Darwin Awards!

More distractions for drivers will eventually mean more cyclists being killed on the road. Looking on the bright side, this could accelerate the eventual transition towards having computers assume control of vehicles on the streets.

Seriously, in all bar two of the car-vs-cyclist accidents I've seen, the cyclist has been 100% at fault. Maybe if they paid attention to the roads instead of running every red light and cycling up the inside of cars that are indicating into that lane, they wouldn't have so ma

The reason people do things like watch television or tweet or text while behind the wheel is because they aren't afraid. They don't believe anything can happen to them. The punishment for this kind of thing should be severe. After all, they put all on the road at risk with this behavior. If the punishment actually reflected the crime then more might become cautious. I think reckless endangerment would be a good charge. A year or two in prison for subjecting their fellow motorists to the risk of loosi

I personally detest every bit of kit that assumes I'm some sort of moron who obviously needs to be told everything.

We have microwaves that bleep for 5 minutes just on the off chance that someone doesn't realise that microwaving means hot food, I have a dishwasher doing the same and I have come across plenty kit that keeps beeping until it gets attention, like a small child. In that same vein I consider UIs that time out so you have to do everything in a certain amount of time - the whole point of a machine

"... safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel."

When the original version of The Andromeda Strain aired on TV circa 1971, I packed a 12" B&W Zenith portable with a 12 V DC car cigarette lighter adapter into a friend's car and we set out watching it. He made it 2 blocks before hitting a curb. I tried and made it 1 block before doing the same. We then parked and watched the rest.

So they're right to be alarmed. They're just several decades late. But then, we knew it was stupid to try it. I suspect far more people these days wouldn't realize that unless the TV told them, and then many would still ignore it. I'd wish for natural selection to take its course with them, except it might do so head on with someone not deserving of the same fate.

A lot of these "safety features" are just a nuisance...Many satnavs wont let you adjust the route if you're moving, but what if a passenger in the vehicle is trying the adjust the route on behalf of the driver? Similarly with TV, what if passengers want to watch it?

Stupid drivers will kill themselves regardless, if they can't watch tv on this as they drive they will just take their own portable set, or portable dvd player, or use a phone, or whatever else they're gonna do which is dangerous. All these "safe

A road I often travel down used to have no speed limit, then it was 40mph, then 30mph and soon it will be 20mph. I have no doubt that the speed limit will eventually be a rigidly enforced 5mph and I can happily watch tv to while away the many hours on the road.

What about passengers? Just because the car is moving means the passengers aren't allowed to watch TV? Now if they use seat sensors to determine if someone else is in the car first, I would find that as a suitable compromise. However, I'd rather see a suspended license law if caught driving recklessly while the TV is on or something. Not just a ticket, but suspend their license. Most people would think twice if1 strike and they're out.

Isn't one of the drawbacks of an ATSC digital signal that it's difficult to maintain a lock on it while you're in motion? They're advertising it as something to do once you arrive in your destination, so its not like people haven't been warned about the realities of the situation

Yes. I'm in South Korea too and it's something I see every day, in nearly every taxi I get in. Its extremely common to see someone tune the GPS screen into digital television stations while driving. The law has little affect on it.

It makes sense after you see a horrible accident on the high way, look into one of the vehicles in the collision and see their LCD screen displaying The Cooking Channel or something.

It is amazing how many drivers here in Japan (specifically near Toyota City, but I assume elsewhere in this country) are watching TV while driving. Add in texting on a cell phone, not wearing seat belts and things get more dangerous.